


Choosing and Chosen

by NightsMistress



Category: Uprooted - Naomi Novik
Genre: Gen, Pre-Book(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-18 04:17:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4691813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightsMistress/pseuds/NightsMistress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a world of difference between choosing and being chosen. Kasia, at seven years old, is beginning to understand that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choosing and Chosen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Merit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merit/gifts).



There was a strange woman sitting on the fence outside Durnik.

Not many visitors came to Durnik, and Kasia supposed that had to do with the Wood. For as long as she could remember, it was the same people all the time. Kasia knew that this was s a very long time as she had a _very_ good memory or so everyone said. Sometimes a peddler would come and sell things that they couldn’t make in Durnik, or things from the capital, but they looked scared the whole time they were in the valley, and they always left. Kasia didn’t understand that, because she couldn’t imagine leaving Durnik, despite her mother saying that she would. Every morning she would braid Kasia’s long blonde hair into painfully tight braids and whisper she would have to be brave for all of them one day, when she went to the Dragon’s tower.

The other children looked up at the strange woman in between their games of tag in the village square, and giggled at the sight of her. She was dressed like a boy, old dirt-brown trousers patched at the knee and thigh, button-down shirt, and the majority of her dark curly hair tucked under a cap. Her booted left foot dangled freely from where she was perched on the fence, while her right rested on top of a battered suitcase. She would look like a boy, if it weren’t for the fact that she was so pretty.

If Kasia had been alone, she might have gone to speak to her, because a strange person might talk about events from faraway places or stories that Kasia hadn’t heard before, and that was something to be treasured. But she was winning the current game of tag, and so she didn’t want to stop just yet. She was the champion of the village at the moment and she didn’t want to give that up to Aleksandra, who was definitely not as fast as her, or as good at dodging. Besides, the strange woman didn’t look like she wanted company. She looked as angry as a storm front, and about as willing to talk to a little girl. 

“Isn’t that your sister, Kasia?” Aleksandra said, and then tagged her.

Kasia looked over and saw that the strange woman was talking to her sister, Ewa. It didn’t look like a nice conversation. The strange woman was all tense and glaring at Ewa, while Ewa had the mulish look she wore when she was losing a fight with someone. It was so curious, especially as Ewa never really fought with anyone anymore, that Kasia had to find out what was going on. She made her way over.

“Kasia, there you are!” said Ewa on seeing her. “This is Julia. We knew each other as girls. I wanted you to meet her.”

Kasia’s eyes widened. Now that Ewa had said her name, she knew who this person was. She was the girl the Dragon had chosen before he chose the current one, now grown up older than even Ewa, who was her eldest sister at nearly twenty-five. Julia looked down at Kasia, her expression softening from its hard hostility. It wasn’t friendly, but the hard line of her lips was no longer there.

“She’s a pretty one,” Julia said instead of greeting Kasia. It wasn’t said how outsiders said it. When peddlers came to Durnik, they often called Kasia pretty, or clever. That didn’t mean anything to Kasia, because they did not know what prettiness or cleverness meant. They thought that being pretty or clever meant that people would give you what you wanted, and that wasn’t what it really meant at all. Being called pretty, when the Dragon watched over the entire valley from his tower, really meant that something bad would happen when you were older, no matter how nice the words sounded now. 

When Julia called Kasia pretty, it didn’t sound like any of those, but instead something to be angry about. It was the first time Kasia had heard anyone say it so bitterly. She said to Kasia, with a peculiar sympathy, “You’ll be the next Dragon girl.”

Kasia had heard people whispering that Hanna for all of Kasia’s life, before Hanna had been chosen by the Dragon, a few days ago. She wasn’t as pretty as Julia, but she was nicer and always made the best clothes. Everyone had wanted some festival clothes made by Hanna. Kasia had a dress that she had made, as pretty as any princess’s in a story. It had been a fact of life that one day the Dragon would take Hanna. However, lately people had said the same thing of _Kasia_ , that she was pretty and clever and so the Dragon would choose her too. It made her think that there must have been a time before Hanna was likely to be chosen, because there had been a time when Kasia was just herself, before everyone started to think she’d be chosen next. 

Kasia had only known Hanna as the next Dragon’s girl. Now that she was gone, no one mentioned her at all. Would that happen to Kasia too, if she was chosen? It seemed dreadful.

“I don’t want to be,” Kasia confessed to this strange woman whom the Dragon had given back. It was the first time she had said it to anyone. She didn’t _want_ to be the Dragon’s girl, even if everyone else seemed to think that was what was going to happen.

“I didn’t either,” said Julia. “But that’s what happens when you’re chosen. Only the choosers get what they want.”

Kasia didn’t really understand what that meant. She thought it might be an adult thing, only to sneak a look at Ewa who was also frowning slightly in much the same way Kasia knew she was. Maybe it was a Julia thing.

She saw Ewa visibly take a breath and hold it, before letting it go. She said, in that infuriatingly calm way she had when she knew she was being reasonable and it was you that was being silly, “Julia, mother and I were hoping that you could tell Kasia a little about what to expect.”

When Ewa used that tone of voice on Kasia, she would always get flustered and angry, before she did as Ewa wanted because there was nothing else she could do. It was especially bad because she didn’t _want_ to know what it was like to live with the Dragon, but there was nothing she could say to stop Julia if that was what she wanted to talk about. She looked at Julia pleadingly.

Julia snorted. “Why? So that she won’t be afraid?” She shook her head in disgust. “He chooses the special ones.”

“Everyone knows that,” Ewa said tensely.

“Why does he do that?” Kasia asked, and was rewarded by Julia nodding at her.

“He’s a collector,” Julia said, which Kasia didn’t understand. Ewa made a sound in the back of her throat that Kasia knew meant she didn’t understand either. “He likes pretty, clever things to look at and admire.”

“Oh,” Kasia said, not sure what to make of this information. It didn’t sound too terrible, as long as he didn’t yell at her or was mean to her. 

“You won’t see too many people,” Julia went on. “He lives alone and no-one from the valley will come up unless they have to. You’ve started to notice it, haven’t you? Your friends invite you to fewer games, and you’re closer to fewer of them. By the time he comes, it’ll almost be a relief because at least then you know it’ll be over and you can go anywhere else afterward. Even to places where you’ll have real friends.”

That sounded really sad, and Kasia thought it explained why Julia was so angry. Being alone, as Julia had been, sounded awful. Being forgotten, like what everyone had done with Hanna, sounded terrible. But Kasia was different; she had Agnieszka. It would be too terrible to bear if she did not have Nieszka to be her friend, and Nieszka’s mother to comfort Kasia when she cried , but she _did_. Even if everyone else pretended to forget Kasia, she’d have them.

Surely Agnieszka wouldn’t stop being her friend, even if she was going to be chosen by the Dragon.

“You know why that happened,” Ewa was protesting. “Why are you blaming us? We couldn’t have done anything to stop him.”

“What will you do to help this one?” asked Julia, her expression hard and pitiless and her jaw set, as she nodded at Kasia. “Will you stop them taking this one?”

Kasia didn’t need to look at Ewa to know the truth. If the Dragon chose her — and she knew that he would — no-one would stop him. They couldn’t, because the Dragon kept everyone safe. If the Dragon wasn’t there, then the Wood would hurt all of them. She remembered when there had been a bad harvest one year: how her stomach ached, and she felt sick and dizzy. It would have been so much worse if the Dragon hadn’t been there to save them. But she still didn’t want to think that she would have to go with him when she was older.

“I’ll tell you what someone should have told me,” Julia said to Kasia. “Once you’re chosen, never come back here.”

“Don’t fill her head with nonsense, the Dragon always brings them back,” Ewa snapped. “She might even stay with us.”

“Hah,” said Julia, her laugh mirthless. She returned her attention to Kasia. “He’ll bring you back unless you tell him no. You can leave right away, if you want.”

“I don’t understand.” Kasia really didn’t understand. Her mind simply stopped at the thought of leaving the valley, with its woods and streams that she recognised, even if it meant leaving the Wood as well. While the Wood was dangerous and more so each year, the valley was home. Her family had been living in the valley for as long as anyone could remember. The only people who left were the ones that were chosen, and that was only because the Dragon had taken them first. They hadn’t left on their own.

Julia studied her carefully. “You’ll get a choice, little Kasia. The first one you’ll ever get to make. Don’t make my mistake. _Never_ come back. There’ll be nothing here for you. Now where is that wagon. I’m done with being here.”

“Oh,” Kasia said. She thought she might understand what Julia meant this time, and why she was so eager to leave. “Good luck in the capital,” she added.

Julia smiled down at her. “You too, little Kasia.”

“Come along, we should find out where Julia’s wagon is,” Ewa said, leading Kasia away by the hand. Her grip was painfully tight and her face stony, so Kasia didn’t protest. 

She did look back at Julia. Julia continued to sit on the fence, her foot swinging loosely, her bag at her feet. She looked so unhappy, as if she had not come home at all. _One day,_ Kasia realised, _that could be me_.

Kasia decided that she would never go back after she was chosen.

And she didn’t.


End file.
